


Broken Bones + Father Figures

by JustAnotherWriter (N1ghtshade)



Series: Advent Calendar Gift Fics [8]
Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: 3.05 AU, Angst, Gen, James is a terrible parent, and Jack is a great one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2019-09-14 13:27:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16913709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/N1ghtshade/pseuds/JustAnotherWriter
Summary: They need to keep going. And Angus still isn’t on his feet. James grabs his arm and starts hauling him up, but stops abruptly when Angus screams, cringing away and curling protectively over his right leg.When things go very wrong, very fast, James is forced to face the reality of what he did to Mac when he abandoned him.





	Broken Bones + Father Figures

James stumbles to his feet, hand pressed to the bandage on his side. The dentist’s work is holding, thankfully, but it isn’t the best patch job he’s ever had. They need to get to whatever exfil Dalton has planned as soon as possible. 

They need to keep going. And Angus still isn’t on his feet. James grabs his arm and starts hauling him up, but stops abruptly when Angus  _ screams, _ cringing away and curling protectively over his right leg. 

_ Damn it. _ Angus must have landed badly after the jump. James can’t see anything visibly wrong, thankfully the bone isn’t snapped to the point of jabbing itself out of his leg, but it’s obvious Angus isn’t going anywhere in a hurry. 

And then there’s a click, and James looks up to see that Gomez has a gun trained on them. The next second, he’s lifting it away and there’s a crack of a shot, which James glances instinctively to find the target of. One of the cartel soldiers who was chasing them is just slumping to the ground, his shirt coated in red.

“They want me dead,” Gomez says. “I will not hurt you if you help me get out of here alive.”

“Then prove it. Put that gun down.” James stands up, walking away from Angus, who’s still shivering with pain. But they came here for Gomez, and if he runs this is all for nothing. Angus understands that. He knows the mission always comes first.

“I think I would prefer-” Gomez never gets the last part of his sentence out, because James catches hold of the end of a ladder leaning against the building beside them and brings it down on Gomez’s arm. The man steps back, stunned, and James lays him out with a left hook. 

He grabs the line they used to jump down from the roof, cutting it loose with his knife and tying up Gomez’s hands before dragging him over to the wall where Angus has managed to prop himself up and is shakily feeling down his leg. About halfway down his shin, he stops with a short, choked off yelp. 

“Now let’s see about that leg.” James bends down to take a look. He can’t see any visible deformity; lower leg breaks tend to be splinted by the second, undamaged bone. James pulls out his knife and begins to cut away the leg of Angus’s pants. 

“Why don’t you just go get him to exfil?” Angus snaps, and there’s a pained bitterness in his voice.

“We need to do something to stabilize this.”

“Right. Aren’t you the one who keeps telling me the mission comes first?” his words grind out between clenched teeth as James feels down the bone. “Just get Gomez out of country.” 

“It does. I need to know if you’re fit to travel.”

Angus shouts, and at first James thinks he’s hit the break, but then he sees that his son’s face is twisted in anger, not pain. “Just STOP!” He shoves James’s hands away. “If you’re going to leave me here, just say so! Stop trying to talk your way around it!” 

James rocks back on his heels. “I’m going to do whatever I can to get you out with us.”

“But if you can’t, if I’m too injured, you’ll leave me.” Angus snaps. “Don’t lie to me and say you won’t.” He coughs into his hand, then wipes it quickly on his jeans. But James still sees the blood. “You’ve never once put me before this job. You abandoned me, because you didn’t want me in the way!”

“I did that to protect you!”

“That’s absolute bullshit!” Angus yells, then begins to cough harder. He’s shaking, unable to breathe properly the way he’s leaning against the wall. “You could have found a way to take me with you! You’re the smartest person I know and you couldn’t spare a thought to how to keep me around.” His voice trails off in choked gasps.

“Angus…”

“Stop! Just take him and go. Finish the mission.” Angus’s eyes are blue ice. “Go on, this time I’m giving you permission. You didn’t wait for it last time, so this should be easy.” 

James is vaguely aware of the burn from his own wound, but there’s an ache in his stomach that has nothing to do with that pain.  _ Damn it. He’s right. _ “Angus, I’m sorry. If I could change that…”

“You can’t.” The words are barely a whisper. 

“I’m going to go find us a vehicle I can hotwire. We’ll just have to try and find a way around the roadblocks.” James can’t go back. But he can save his son’s life now. 

* * *

In the plane on the way back, James can feel Jack’s gaze withering him. James doesn’t need anyone else to hate him right now, but he supposes he deserves it. Not only is Angus severely injured, but they don’t even have the man he almost got killed for. Gomez is dead.

“Dalton-”

“Don’t speak to me.” Jack’s words are clipped. “Thanks to you, my son is dying in the back of this damn rustbucket. And for what? For your pride, and your mistakes.”

“For what it’s worth I am sorry.”

“Sorry ain’t gonna fix him.” Jack’s glare is as cold as the metal of his handgun. “He might be willing to keep trying, with you, but he’s not here to tell me to stop. So I’m gonna say what he won’t. You failed. You lost the right to be that kid’s parent when you walked out of his life. There’s no reason you can give to justify it.” 

“I know. But I want to start over.”

“That isn’t possible.” Jack says, and a muscle twitches in his cheek. “When you hurt a kid, you scar them. Doesn’t matter that it ain’t always on the outside. And that never goes away. There’s no clean slate for the scars you left on him. I’m just trying to put the pieces back together.” He slams a hand onto the dashboard, which shudders ominously. “Do you even see it? What you did destroyed him. He’s afraid. He doubts himself, he thinks he has to be useful or everyone’s going to toss him aside. And he sees himself as expendable.”

James flinches. Mac’s insistence that James leave him and finish the mission seemed like a petty jab at the time. But what if that’s a normal reaction to being hurt? How many times has Jack Dalton ignored that? 

“Thank you.” It’s an effort to choke out the words, but they need to be said. “For taking care of my son.” 

“If you were a real father, you’d know there’s no need to thank me for that. Because that’s just what any good parent does without a second thought.”

James is silent the rest of the flight. 


End file.
